The Government's proposed gambling bill has been universally criticised. The unanimous verdict among media pundits is that it will create a nation full of feckless, debt-ridden males, squandering the family fortune at the local casino while their women and children exist on bean juice and snot.

Whether justified or not, the furore ignores that the internet has made gambling more accessible than ever. If you possess a PC, a phone line and a credit card, you need never leave the house to waste your cash, which is why four million people regularly gamble online.

And no one batted an eyelid when Sky introduced Sky Bet, a service that allows hapless couch potatoes to use their remote controls to bet on live sport. In the interests of our nation's morals, I plumped the pillows on my sofa, opened an account of £50 - to which Sky Bet added a complimentary yet ethically dubious tenner - and started my descent into depravity.

Bowls

My TV guide tells me that live bowls is on at 5pm. What better way to test Sky Bet's boast that "it matters more when there's money on it" than a game in which it is de rigueur to be over 75 and smoke a pipe? I log in, but then my wife returns home with my son. I feel squalid, as if I have been downloading hardcore porn. My son demands the Tweenies, his bean-juice-hating mother shamefully egging him on. They win: the bowls isn't live at all and therefore I can't bet on it.

Money made: Zero.

Lesson learned: Gambling works best as a shameful secret.

Horse Racing

The next evening I scour the schedules. The only live sport is something called Virtual Racing. I press the button and get a list of races from a place called Fortune (geddit?) Meadows. I choose the 4.20 and am given a list of nags. Their names, such as Bag A Nag, evoke Alan Partridge's legendary visit to the races (Alf Ramsey's Porn Dungeon; Zeinab Badawi's Twenty Hotels.) I stick £5 on Take La Plage. Nothing happens. Turns out the race isn't until at 4.20 the following day.

Before going to bed, I see that Tim Henman is due to play in the quarter finals of the US Open. Timbo has battled bravely against injury to reach the last eight and the newspapers are starting to get excited, which means the time of his choking is nigh. I lay an unpatriotic fiver on some street-fighting Slovak, hewn by years of hardship, to kick his Home Counties, scone-loving arse in straight sets. The Tiger wins. Easily.

Money lost: £10.

Lesson learned: Rid self of all ridiculous notions of street-fighting Slovaks hewn by years of hardship, etc.

Football

This is more like it. England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are all in action in World Cup qualifiers. I have alcohol and male company, a combination that ensures I am about to blow shedloads of cash. This also gives me a chance to sample some "in-play" betting, one of the service's big selling points. So I don't have to watch Scotland, an experience more harrowing than travelling by coach, I put a fiver on them losing 2-1 to Slovenia.

England are playing Poland. I want to bet on how many times Martin Tyler's co-commentator, Glen Hoddle, will misuse the word "situation". (He once memorably said an injured player needed to be tested in an "11 versus 11 situation".) But the punts are not so original: I can bet on who scores the first goal, half-time score, and the result. I stick a fiver on Frank Lampard to score the opening goal.

I switch to Wales against Northern Ireland. Within 20 minutes three men have been sent off, one for making the international gesture for "Stick it up your arse" - slapping left hand on right bicep while emphatically raising right fist skywards - to the crowd. He later says he was acknowledging his family, which makes you wonder about what they do for entertainment at Christmas round his place.

Anyway, time to bet in-play. The score is 2-1 to the Irish. I bet they will hang on to that lead. It takes ages to place. Months of my son sucking the remote have dulled its reactions: the Blue Nile have recorded albums in less time than it takes for me to press the button and it register on screen. My TV keeps informing me I need to be quicker. I eventually place the bet but Wales equalise late on, Defoe scores first for England and Scotland draw nil-nil. Arse.

Money lost: £15.

Lesson learned: Buy new remote.

Horse Racing (II)

I return to Fortune Meadows. In essence Virtual Racing is a computer-generated version of the seaside arcade game in which you pick a horse, place your bet, the yellow one goes off really quickly before being passed by the red one. After the first race one of the two smirking buffoons that present it - for some reason one of them cannot stop rubbing his thighs - pretends to have a phone conversation with one of the virtual riders. This is desperate television.

In the next I bet on GG Top, at 12-1. He gets an early lead, comes under pressure in the final straight but hangs on and I WIN! I am £60 richer. From a computer game. Jordan pops up on screen to plug the programme, but she doesn't have to sell it to me. I have £90 in my previously impoverished account and I am hooked.

Money made: £65.

Lesson learned: Virtual sport matters more when there's money on it.

American Football

It is the first weekend of the NFL season. Like many of my generation, when it first appeared on Channel 4 in the mid-1980s I pretended to like it for about a year, which is about how long a match lasts. Anyone who has stayed up to watch a Super Bowl knows the almost cosmic tedium this game generates. At midnight you sit with a beer on your hand watching some shrieking harpie massacring the Star Spangled Banner: 10 minutes later you're asleep in your armchair, having lost consciousness as soon as the first ball is kicked.

Among the TV panel is an American pundit called Cecil - pronounced Sea-sull - who tells us that Minnesota will do well this season. I stick £5 on them to beat Dallas by 13-18 points. True to form I fall asleep and don't find out until the next morning that Minnesota won 35-17. I win. Again! My account is now looking very handsome: £117.50. My wife urges me to bank it, perhaps spend it on something for the flat. My gambling is not some sordid little secret now: it's a boast, a brag, a viable way of making cash. It is patently time to stop.

Money made: £27.50.

Lesson learned: Always trust a man with an absurd Christian name.

Speedway

For those raised in the late 1970s and early 1980s, speedway meant one of two things: a dizzying fairground ride accompanied by bad heavy metal and violent stares from scores of truculent feasties; or a series of motorbike races from some godforsaken concrete bowl in Poland that filled time on World Of Sport before the football results came in. The latter is currently enjoying a renaissance on Sky.

Coventry are racing Oxford. I bet a fiver on Coventry winning heat four by five points to one, which means their riders have to finish in the first two places. At the first corner one of the Coventry riders loses control, falls off and slams spectacularly into the hoardings.

Undeterred, I bet on Oxford to win heat six 5-1; they win 4-2. Deterred, I receive a hot "inside" tip that Paul Jewell is about to be unveiled as the new Blackburn Rovers manager. I stick down a fiver at 20-1 and pride myself on possessing such excellent contacts. Next morning Mark Hughes accepts the job. I curse myself for having such useless contacts, bank my winnings and promise the wife a slap-up dinner at the restaurant of her choice as long as it's cheap.

Overall money made: £42.50.

Overall lessons learned: Bad sports remain bad sports whether you have money riding on them or not; remote controls are useless utensils for laying bets; and women are fickle.